The Impact Of Social Media On High School Learners At Metsimatsho Secondary School
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend a special thanks to my Supervisor, Prof. M. K Mhlolo for his constant support and advice. Thanks to his guidance and supervision. An exceptional thanks goes to the staff and learners of Metsimatsho Secondary School for their cooperativeness in ensuring the study becomes a victory. Lastly a special thanks goes to my parents for their constant support and for being a pillar to cry on.
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
Channels of communication have been upgraded that communicating with a person that is miles apart is a matter of a few seconds now. Humans are considered to be social animals hence communication is important (Ahmad, 2015). The dominant type of communication in the olden days was done through telegrams, writing of letters, face to face contacts and other telecommunications (Ahmad, 2015). However nowadays it is very rare because social media has taken over and it has become the number one source of communication used though out the whole world (Ahmad, 2015). There are numerous online networking platforms that include but are not limited to Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Flickr, snapchat, vine, Tumblr (Alsaif 2016). The youth ranks high more than any other age group in using social media (adolescence and young adult), this is because they turn to be lovers of latest trends which may be latest fashion trends, new apps and cell phones (Ahmad, 2015). It may also be the excitement of meeting new people, expressing themselves and also filling up their emptiness and their insecurities (Jenny, 2014). Alsaif (2016) argues that social media networking has changed several industries, but the most striking impact of it is in the classrooms and the overall education system. With such a high rate of students using social media on daily basis, there is a strong need to evaluate the level to which social media is having its influence on students. South Africa is one of the countries greatly affected by social media (Synman, 2016).
The statement of the research problem
Social media is now considered an integral part of our lives and it has great effects, especially on high school learners (Ahmad, 2015). It was introduced for accessing information, facilitating online learning, to build relationships and to gain wider knowledge however learners are spending too much time on social media and it is a sad thing to say that its influence has done more harm than good (Jenny, 2014). Lives have been lost, reputations have been tarnished, privacy has been invaded and the learners have been exposed to pornography and other dangerous apps (Jenny, 2014). Fake identities and profiles have been created and now social media has become a platform for cyber bullying (Jenny, 2014).
The purpose of the study
The purpose of this study will be to outline the aspects of social media usage among high school learners as well as usage patterns and behavioral components and addictive patterns of social media usage. For this study qualitative methods will be used. Questionnaires will be accustomed to produce the required responses. High school learners will be chosen as the population
Research questions/Hypothesis
- What are the effects of social media on academic performance?
- What is the impact of social media globally?
- What is the statistics of popular trends on the usage of social media?
The Significance of the Study
The use of social media has improved exclusively among high school learners and most of the schools banned the use or carrying of cell phones by learners during school hours. In many cases, management of the school confiscated the cell phones from the learners. It is crucial to know why the school management does not allow the learners to bring cell phones and use social media during the school hours.
Definition of key terms
Social media: Electrical communication through which users create online populations to share information, thoughts, personal messages and other content. High school learners: Pupils that attend an educational institution that is more advanced than primary school and it starts from grade 8 to grade 12. Cell phone; A device that is small and wireless but has alike functions of a standard telephone.
Delimitations of the study
Qwa Qwa has a total of approximately 25 secondary school but the focus will only be on the high school leaners of Metsimatsho Secondary School. The study will focus on behavioural patterns of learners regarding social media and its impact.
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
This chapter aims to review literature that outlines the impact of social media on learners and their behavioural patterns.
Social media’s effect on academic performance
There are negative and positive effects of online communication, because there are unsafe ways in which the internet could be used. The school management is trying to control how learners use digital media on school grounds (Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008). In some schools, leaders believe that social media has a positive impact on the development of the learners’ education. In other schools, the access of social network sites has been banned (Ahn, 2010). Ahn (2010) also states that the examples of the social media networks that the younger generation use are: YouTube, to share and stream videos, and Facebook, to have a complete identity online, and a network of friends.
According to Rideout (2012) 71% of the teachers believe that social media has negatively impacted the students’ attention span and 58% of teachers believe that social media has negatively impacted their writing skills, due to their frequent use of slang language and word abbreviations. Exhausting social media gives learners the chance to improve their learning, since they have the chance to share knowledge with one another and conduct group projects more efficiently (O’Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson, 2011). According to Cain & Chretien (2013) a new term known as interprofessional education has been introduced. It means that, instead of each learner studying on his or her own, different learners come together to share the piece of information they have with others. This leads to improved results as they learn from each other’s experiences. This can be attained by utilising social media to create study groups on Facebook, Skype, or any medium that allows multi contact conversations and allowing them to share their assignments and questioning their peers problems they don’t understand. Naizabekov (2012) concluded that social media causes postponement as a result of its distracting nature. It would take an individual who uses social media much more time than it would take an attentive individual to finish a task. Through postponement emerges the second negative impact, which is lack of motivation, because using social media with studying develops negative attitude towards their individual work at school.
The impact of social media globally
According to Ahmad (2015), social media is the number one tool used by almost all living human all around the world. Its main aim or creation was to advance communication, but recently it does not only affect the way we communicate but also the way we communicate with other people, and as result it has done more harm than good (Ahmad, 2015). Social media affects people daily and in varying ways and one is the way people express themselves, this includes people who are introverts, who are shy in face to face and social media offers an opportunity for them to be whoever they want to be as they are not seen (Ahmad, 2017). Social media also creates isolation, bullying, new friendships and or sense of humanity (Ahmad, 2017). Although social media is used for communication with people from different cities, states or other provinces, its effects have been badly on the youth especially the teenagers because they usually put up their profiles, posts pictures and their whereabouts which can be very dangerous for them because not everyone who uses these networks is a good person (Ahmad, 2017).
The youth also gain popularity through the pictures they post which might also be dangerous for them, they do not do it for themselves but rather to impress their friends or followers by displaying their physic and post explicit pictures which in turn can damage their reputation (Ahmad, 2017). The more the world is advancing the more the youth is exposed to social media, and as a result they become victims of cyberbullying, which is a type of bulling done by the use of electronics or cyberspace. This is a very dangerous type of bulling as the attacker can invade your privacy, use harmful words to attack you and at the end he cannot be caught by anyone (Ahmad, 2017). There are many ways social media has impacted our world (Jenny, 2014). Firstly it is through business, many companies whether big or small have used social media to advertise their businesses (Jenny, 2014). Business advertisements are on Facebook, and also in everyday television commercials (Jenny, 2014). Secondly, it is through politics, politicians have used social media as platform in which they put influence worldwide and also for elections (Jenny, 2014). Thirdly, is socialization, which has also been a platform for the youth to socialize with people whether locally or across the globe (Jenny, 2014). The fourth is that of cyberbullying, this is the most dangerous impact of social media because it has destroyed many lives, others leading to suicides and loss of careers worldwide (Jenny, 2014). The fifth and last, is impact on privacy, the youth recently has no understanding of privacy, they post whatever and even reveal personal information, which in turn can always come back to haunt them and make them vulnerable to crime or victims of crime (Jenny, 2014).
Social media in South Africa
The recent South African Social Media Landscape 2016 study conducted by World Wide Worx and Fuse ware has discovered that Instagram has seen massive growth over the last year, and that Facebook is now used by a quarter of the population ( Snyman, 2016). According to Snyman (2016), they have found that in South Africa there are: 13 million Facebook users 7. 4 million Twitter users 8. 28 million YouTube users 2. 68 million Instagram users. This means in the last year Facebook increased by 8%, from 12-million to 13-million users, Twitter by 12%, from 6,6-million to 7,4-million users, YouTube by 15%, from 7,2-million to 8,28-million users, and Instagram, with a shocking 133%, from 1,1-million to 2,68-million users (Snyman, 2016). The youth of South Africa has been the leading age group in using these social media platforms and the impacts are mostly bad an example of the bad impact is that of a young girl who goes by the name of Sesethu, who went viral on social media, for showing a series video of explicit acts of masturbation (Snyman, 2016). Another example is a student believed to be at Walter Sisulu University, who mistakenly received 14 million from NSFAS, she also went viral, she was posting the parties she threw and items she bought, which in return she became a victim of cyberbullying and ended up ending her life. This is evidence that social media has done much harm than good (Snyman, 2016).
Social media fact sheet (statistics popular trends in recent years)
The accessibility to the internet has become very important worldwide (Gordon, 2017). Social media has become the lovechild all around across the globe, which comes in many varying forms e. g. blogs, forums, business networks, photo-sharing, platforms, social games, microblogs, chat apps and social networks (Gordon, 2017). It has been estimated that by 2020 the number of social media users worldwide will be 2, 95 billion, which in fact is one third of the earth’s population (Gordon, 2017). An estimated 650 million of these users are expected to be from China alone and approximately a third of a million from India (Gordon, 2017). The region with the highest penetration rate of social networks is North America, where around 60 percent of the population has at least one social account. As of 2016, 78 percent of the United States population had a social networking prole (Gordon, 2017). Facebook ranks number one in the book of social networks, as it the first social network to surpass 1 billion users in 2017 worldwide (Gordon, 2017). Chapter 3
METHODOLOGY
Research Design
A qualitative method will be used to conduct this study reason being the study will focus on measuring the behaviour of learners and to analyse the impacts of social media on them.
The Research Instruments
A questionnaire (see Annexure 1) will be used to collect views of different leaners on numerous impacts of social media reason being the social media network environment cannot be controlled. Protective measures will be taken regarding privacy and security of learners’ information.
Pilot testing
Pilot testing will be performed in order to ensure the reliability and validity of the study. A pre-designed questionnaire will be given to the management staff to assess after they provide criticism necessary changes will be made on the questionnaire if need be.
The Population
The study will focus on a number of 400 high school learners
The Sample
The study will entail of only a certain percentage of the learners who will be able to participate and answer the questionnaire.
The Sampling Techniques/Procedures
Simple random sampling technique will be used and the sampling population will be chosen from high school at Metsimatsho Secondary School.
Data Collection Procedures
The method of collecting data for this study will be the use of a questionnaire. The questionnaire will consist of 13 questions.
Data Analysis Techniques
Ethical Consideration
No discrimination in terms of religion or nationality will be experiencedNo learner will have to disclose their private information like name.
Limitations of the study
The study will only focus on a specific number of learners and not entirely on the whole school and that may restrict discoveries from the whole school. The time to conduct might not be enough.
